Tuesday, April 7, 2015

With Canada's Senators making the news on a reasonably regular basis, I wanted to revisit a bit of background about the Senate,
showing how much this august body of individuals costs Canadian taxpayers and
how many days they actually spend "proofreading" legislation that
comes to them from the House of Commons.

Let's start with the
compensation received by Canada's senators as shown on this screen capture from the Parliament of
Canada website:

While a base salary of
$145,400 annually won't make Canada's senators wealthy, it's slightly less than
twice what a median Canadian household earns in a year ($76,000 in 2013). It is interesting to
note that on April 1, 2016, senators received a raise of $3,00o or 2.1 percent
for their efforts and that they have received a raise every year since 2012.

On top of their salaries,
senator's travel expenses are also covered. This is one issue that has
become quite public in light of the Pamela Wallin issue where it is unclear
whether she was billing her private travel to the public purse. Normally,
senatorial travel expenses are covered under the federal government's "64
point" travel system which provides each senator with the same access to
travel no matter how far they live from Ottawa. Here is a brief explanation of the "64
point" system:

The number of points used
for a particular trip will vary with both the departure and destination
locations, how many days of travel are involved and the mode of travel used by the
senator. A single point is deducted for every trip to Ottawa no
matter how many days are spent either at the point of origin or in Ottawa.
Senators can also deduct one-quarter of a point for travel within
their region by car. Unlike the rest of us who generally travel by
ourselves for business, according to the Senators' Travel Policy, senators can appoint
a designated traveller which can include spouses or children. According
to Section 2.9.1 of the policy, senators, their designated travellers and
dependent children may travel in business class; all other travellers
who accompany the senator are to travel in cattle class. After all, why sully yourselves travelling with the sweaty masses?

Let's look at an example.
Here are the total quarterly expenses, including travel, for the current
Speaker of the Senate, Pierre Claude Nolin, who was appointed to the
Senate to represent the province of Quebec by Brian Mulroney in June 1993:

Please note that these
expenses are for the three month period from December 1, 2014 to February 2,
2015 only. While the Harper government likes to tout its newfound
proactive openness, you will notice that there are absolutely no details about
what the expenses claimed covered.

Senators also benefit
from the taxpayer-funded fully-indexed gold-plated pension plan that is the
benefit of all Members of Parliament who serve for six years or more. In 2012 - 2013, the average annual senator pension was $67,461. A 2012 study by the Canadian Taxpayers
Federation showed that for every $1.00 that senators paid toward their pension
fund, Canadian taxpayers contributed $23.30. This meant that in 2009 -
2010, taxpayers contributed $248,668 for each senator's pension. As of
April 2010, 20 former senators were collected an annual pension in excess of
$70,000. On top of that, Canada's senators are entitled to collect Canada
Pension Plan payments.

Lastly, let's look at the bottom line. According to the latest version of the Financial Statements of
The Senate of Canada for the year ending March 31, 2015, here is the total cost
of the Senate to Canada's taxpayers for fiscal 2015:

The total net cost of
operations for one year was $101.933 million or an average of $970,790 for each of
Canada's 105 senators including those who for one reason or another, did not
sit for all of fiscal 2015.

It's a pretty sweet deal
being a Canadian senator. You work a handful of days every month, take
all of July and August off along with another month over Christmas and two
weeks over Easter and spend your days putting in time on various meaningless
committees and rubber stamping legislation that is hand-fed to you by the House
of Commons until you get to retire with a pension that is fully-indexed to
inflation. Thank goodness Canada's Prime Ministers always seem to find a few brave
souls that are willing to make the supreme sacrifice and take part in Canada's democratic institutions.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe To

About Me

I have been an avid follower of the world's political and economic scene since the great gold rush of 1979 - 1980 when it seemed that the world's economic system was on the verge of collapse. I am most concerned about the mounting level of government debt and the lack of political will to solve the problem. Actions need to be taken sooner rather than later when demographic issues will make solutions far more difficult. As a geoscientist, I am also concerned about the world's energy future; as we reach peak cheap oil, we need to find viable long-term solutions to what will ultimately become a supply-demand imbalance.